Alternative Energy

Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) was conceived by the French engineer Jacques D'Arsonval in 1881. But at the time of writing Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii is home to the only operating experimental OTEC plant on earth. OTEC is a potential source of alternative energy to be funded and explored much more than it is today. The great obstacle to overcome with the implementation of a broad level OTEC and practically useful and profitable. It is difficult to get costs down to a reasonable level because of the process currently used to run OTEC. Thermal energy is very clean burning and not add pollutants into the air. But as it stands would be created with our current technology would OTEC plants have the ability to disrupt and damage the local environment.

There are three kinds of OTEC.

“Closed Cycle OTEC” uses a low-boiling point liquid such as, for example, propane to act as an intermediate fluid. The OTEC plant pumps the warm sea water into the reaction chamber and boils the intermediate fluid. This results in the intermediate fluid's vapor pushing the turbine of the engine, which thus generates electricity. The vapor is then cooled down by putting in cold sea water.

“Open Cycle OTEC” is not that different from closed cycling, except in the Open Cycle there is no intermediate fluid. The sea water itself is the driver of the turbine engine in this OTEC format. Warm sea water found on the surface of the ocean is turned into a low-pressure vapor under the constraint of a vacuum. The low-pressure vapor is released in a focused area and it has the power to drive the turbine. To cool down the vapor and create desalinated water for human consumption, the deeper ocean's cold waters are added to the vapor after it has generated sufficient electricity.

“Hybrid Cycle OTEC” is really just a theory for the time being. It seeks to describe the way that we could make maximum usage of the thermal energy of the ocean's waters. There are actually two sub-theories to the theory of Hybrid Cycling. The first involves using a closed cycling to generate electricity. This electricity is in turn used to create the vacuum environment needed for open cycling. The second component is the integration of two open cyclings such that twice the amount of desalinated, potable water is created that with just one open cycle.

It is also used to produce electricity, a closed OTEC plants can be used in the treatment of chemicals. OTEC plants and open cycling and close cycling Different can also be used for pumping up cold deep sea water, which can then be used in refrigeration and air conditioning. Furthermore, during moderate sea water surrounding the plant, are involved in can be used for mariculture and aquaculture projects such as fish farming. It's clearly very different products and services we can get this alternative source of energy.